CHAPTER XXVI

IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS CHARACTER APPEARS UPON THE SCENE; AND MANY

THINGS, INSEPARABLE FROM THIS HISTORY, ARE DONE AND PERFORMED

The old man had gained the street corner, before he began to

recover the effect of Toby Crackit's intelligence. He had

relaxed nothing of his unusual speed; but was still pressing

onward, in the same wild and disordered manner, when the sudden

dashing past of a carriage: and a boisterous cry from the foot

passengers, who saw his danger: drove him back upon the

pavement. Avoiding, as much as was possible, all the main

streets, and skulking only through the by-ways and alleys, he at

length emerged on Snow Hill. Here he walked even faster than

before; nor did he linger until he had again turned into a court;

when, as if conscious that he was now in his proper element, he

fell into his usual shuffling pace, and seemed to breathe more

freely.

Near to the spot on which Snow Hill and Holborn Hill meet, opens,

upon the right hand as you come out of the City, a narrow and

dismal alley, leading to Saffron Hill. In its filthy shops are

exposed for sale huge bunches of second-hand silk handkerchiefs,

of all sizes and patterns; for here reside the traders who

purchase them from pick-pockets. Hundreds of these handkerchiefs

hang dangling from pegs outside the windows or flaunting from the

door-posts; and the shelves, within, are piled with them.

Confined as the limits of Field Lane are, it has its barber, its

coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried-fish warehouse. It is

a commercial colony of itself: the emporium of petty larceny:

visited at early morning, and setting-in of dusk, by silent

merchants, who traffic in dark back-parlours, and who go as

strangely as they come. Here, the clothesman, the shoe-vamper,

and the rag-merchant, display their goods, as sign-boards to the

petty thief; here, stores of old iron and bones, and heaps of

mildewy fragments of woollen-stuff and linen, rust and rot in the

grimy cellars.

It was into this place that the Jew turned. He was well known to

the sallow denizens of the lane; for such of them as were on the

look-out to buy or sell, nodded, familiarly, as he passed along.

He replied to their salutations in the same way; but bestowed no

closer recognition until he reached the further end of the alley;

when he stopped, to address a salesman of small stature, who had

squeezed as much of his person into a child's chair as the chair

would hold, and was smoking a pipe at his warehouse door.

'Why, the sight of you, Mr. Fagin, would cure the hoptalymy!'

said this respectabletrader, in acknowledgment of the Jew's

inquiry after his health.

'The neighbourhood was a little too hot, Lively,' said Fagin,

elevating his eyebrows, and crossing his hands upon his

shoulders.

'Well, I've heerd that complaint of it, once or twice before,'

replied the trader; 'but it soon cools down again; don't you find

it so?'

Fagin nodded in the affirmative. Pointing in the direction of

Saffron Hill, he inquired whether any one was up yonder to-night.

'At the Cripples?' inquired the man.

The Jew nodded.

'Let me see,' pursued the merchant, reflecting.

'Yes, there's some half-dozen of 'em gone in, that I knows. I

don't think your friend's there.'

'Sikes is not, I suppose?' inquired the Jew, with a disappointed

countenance.

'Non istwentus, as the lawyers say,' replied the little man,

shaking his head, and looking amazingly sly. 'Have you got

anything in my line to-night?'

'Nothing to-night,' said the Jew, turning away.

'Are you going up to the Cripples, Fagin?' cried the little man,

calling after him. 'Stop! I don't mind if I have a drop there

with you!'

But as the Jew, looking back, waved his hand to intimate that he

preferred being alone; and, moreover, as the little man could not

very easily disengage himself from the chair; the sign of the

Cripples was, for a time, bereft of the advantage of Mr. Lively's

presence. By the time he had got upon his legs, the Jew had

disappeared; so Mr. Lively, after ineffectually standing on

tiptoe, in the hope of catching sight of him, again forced

himself into the little chair, and, exchanging a shake of the

head with a lady in the opposite shop, in which doubt and

mistrust were plainly mingled, resumed his pipe with a grave

demeanour.

The Three Cripples, or rather the Cripples; which was the sign by

which the establishment was familiarly known to its patrons: was

the public-house in which Mr. Sikes and his dog have already

figured. Merely making a sign to a man at the bar, Fagin walked

straight upstairs, and opening the door of a room, and softly

insinuating himself into the chamber, looked anxiously about:

shading his eyes with his hand, as if in search of some

particular person.

The room was illuminated by two gas-lights; the glare of which

was prevented by the barred shutters, and closely-drawn curtains

of faded red, from being visible outside. The ceiling was

blackened, to prevent its colour from being injured by the

flaring of the lamps; and the place was so full of dense tobacco

smoke, that at first it was scarcely possible to discern anything

more. By degrees, however, as some of it cleared away through

the open door, an assemblage of heads, as confused as the noises

that greeted the ear, might be made out; and as the eye grew more

accustomed to the scene, the spectator gradually became aware of

the presence of a numerous company, male and female, crowded

round a long table: at the upper end of which, sat a chairman

with a hammer of office in his hand; while a professional

gentleman with a bluish nose, and his face tied up for the

benefit of a toothache, presided at a jingling piano in a remote

corner.

As Fagin stepped softly in, the professional gentleman, running

over the keys by way of prelude, occasioned a general cry of

order for a song; which having subsided, a young lady proceeded

to entertain the company with a ballad in four verses, between

each of which the accompanyist played the melody all through, as

loud as he could. When this was over, the chairman gave a

sentiment, after which, the professional gentleman on the

chairman's right and left volunteered a duet, and sang it, with

great applause.

It was curious to observe some faces which stood out prominently

from among the group. There was the chairman himself, (the

landlord of the house,) a coarse, rough, heavy built fellow, who,

while the songs were proceeding, rolled his eyes hither and

thither, and, seeming to give himself up to joviality, had an eye

for everything that was done, and an ear for everything that was

said--and sharp ones, too. Near him were the singers:

receiving, with professional indifference, the compliments of the

company, and applying themselves, in turn, to a dozen proffered

glasses of spirits and water, tendered by their more boisterous

admirers; whose countenances, expressive of almost every vice in

almost every grade, irresistibly attracted the attention, by

their very repulsiveness. Cunning, ferocity, and drunkeness in

all its stages, were there, in their strongest aspect; and women:

some with the last lingering tinge of their early freshness

almost fading as you looked: others with every mark and stamp of

their sex utterly beaten out, and presenting but one loathsome

blank of profligacy and crime; some mere girls, others but young

women, and none past the prime of life; formed the darkest and

saddest portion of this dreary picture.

Fagin, troubled by no grave emotions, looked eagerly from face to

face while these proceedings were in progress; but apparently

without meeting that of which he was in search. Succeeding, at

length, in catching the eye of the man who occupied the chair, he

beckoned to him slightly, and left the room, as quietly as he had

entered it.

'What can I do for you, Mr. Fagin?' inquired the man, as he

followed him out to the landing. 'Won't you join us? They'll be

delighted, every one of 'em.'

The Jew shook his head impatiently, and said in a whisper, 'Is HE

here?'

'No,' replied the man.

'And no news of Barney?' inquired Fagin.

'None,' replied the landlord of the Cripples; for it was he. 'He

won't stir till it's all safe. Depend on it, they're on the

scent down there; and that if he moved, he'd blow upon the thing

at once. He's all right enough, Barney is, else I should have

heard of him. I'll pound it, that Barney's managing properly.

Let him alone for that.'

'Will HE be here to-night?' asked the Jew, laying the same

emphasis on the pronoun as before.

'Monks, do you mean?' inquired the landlord, hesitating.

'Hush!' said the Jew. 'Yes.'

'Certain,' replied the man, drawing a gold watch from his fob; 'I

expected him here before now. If you'll wait ten minutes, he'll

be--'

'No, no,' said the Jew, hastily; as though, however desirous he

might be to see the person in question, he was nevertheless

relieved by his absence. 'Tell him I came here to see him; and

that he must come to me to-night. No, say to-morrow. As he is

not here, to-morrow will be time enough.'

'Good!' said the man. 'Nothing more?'

'Not a word now,' said the Jew, descending the stairs.

'I say,' said the other, looking over the rails, and speaking in

a hoarse whisper; 'what a time this would be for a sell! I've

got Phil Barker here: so drunk, that a boy might take him!'

'Ah! But it's not Phil Barker's time,' said the Jew, looking up.

'Phil has something more to do, before we can afford to part with

him; so go back to the company, my dear, and tell them to lead

merry lives--WHILE THEY LAST. Ha! ha! ha!'

The landlord reciprocated the old man's laugh; and returned to

his guests. The Jew was no sooner alone, than his countenance

resumed its former expression of anxiety and thought. After a

brief reflection, he called a hack-cabriolet, and bade the man

drive towards Bethnal Green. He dismissed him within some quarter

of a mile of Mr. Sikes's residence, and performed the short

remainder of the distance, on foot.

'Now,' muttered the Jew, as he knocked at the door, 'if there is

any deep play here, I shall have it out of you, my girl, cunning

as you are.'

She was in her room, the woman said. Fagin crept softly

upstairs, and entered it without any previous ceremony. The girl

was alone; lying with her head upon the table, and her hair

straggling over it.

'She has been drinking,' thought the Jew, cooly, 'or perhaps she

is only miserable.'

The old man turned to close the door, as he made this reflection;

the noise thus occasioned, roused the girl. She eyed his crafty

face narrowly, as she inquired to his recital of Toby Crackit's

story. When it was concluded, she sank into her former attitude,

but spoke not a word. She pushed the candle impatiently away;

and once or twice as she feverishly changed her position,

shuffled her feet upon the ground; but this was all.

During the silence, the Jew looked restlessly about the room, as

if to assure himself that there were no appearances of Sikes

having covertly returned. Apparently satisfied with his

inspection, he coughed twice or thrice, and made as many efforts

to open a conversation; but the girl heeded him no more than if

he had been made of stone. At length he made another attempt;

and rubbing his hands together, said, in his most concilitory

tone,

'And where should you think Bill was now, my dear?'

The girl moaned out some half intelligible reply, that she could

not tell; and seemed, from the smothered noise that escaped her,

to be crying.

'And the boy, too,' said the Jew, straining his eyes to catch a

glimpse of her face. 'Poor leetle child! Left in a ditch,

Nance; only think!'

'The child,' said the girl, suddenly looking up, 'is better where

he is, than among us; and if no harm comes to Bill from it, I

hope he lies dead in the ditch and that his young bones may rot

there.'

'What!' cried the Jew, in amazement.

'Ay, I do,' returned the girl, meeting his gaze. 'I shall be

glad to have him away from my eyes, and to know that the worst is

over. I can't bear to have him about me. The sight of him turns

me against myself, and all of you.'

'Pooh!' said the Jew, scornfully. 'You're drunk.'

'Am I?' cried the girl bitterly. 'It's no fault of yours, if I

am not! You'd never have me anything else, if you had your will,

except now;--the humour doesn't suit you, doesn't it?'

'No!' rejoined the Jew, furiously. 'It does not.'

'Change it, then!' responded the girl, with a laugh.

'Change it!' exclaimed the Jew, exasperated beyond all bounds by

his companion's unexpectedobstinacy, and the vexation of the

night, 'I WILL change it! Listen to me, you drab. Listen to me,

who with six words, can strangle Sikes as surely as if I had his

bull's throat between my fingers now. If he comes back, and

leaves the boy behind him; if he gets off free, and dead or

alive, fails to restore him to me; murder him yourself if you

would have him escape Jack Ketch. And do it the moment he sets

foot in this room, or mind me, it will be too late!'

'What is all this?' cried the girl involuntarily.

'What is it?' pursued Fagin, mad with rage. 'When the boy's

worth hundreds of pounds to me, am I to lose what chance threw me

in the way of getting safely, through the whims of a drunken gang